Feeding the Sheep

Because
our study this quarter is 1 and 2 Peter, we are reading the words of
someone who was with Jesus at most of the important moments in His
ministry. Peter was also someone who had become a prominent leader
among the earliest Christians. These facts alone would make his letters
worth reading. But these letters take on added interest given that they
were written to churches experiencing troubled times: they faced
persecution from without and the danger of false teachers arising from
within.

Peter warns that among the things that these
false teachers will promote is doubt about the second coming of Jesus.
“Where is the promise of his coming?” they will say, “for since the
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation” ( 2 Pet. 3:4 ). Today, almost two thousand
years later, we know the reality of that charge, don’t we?

Besides
Peter’s warning about false teachers, the suffering the churches
experienced is a topic that he returns to several times. This
suffering, he says, mirrors the sufferings of Jesus, who took our sins
in His body when He died on the cross ( 1 Pet. 2:24 ). But the good news
is that Jesus’ death brought nothing less than freedom from the eternal
death caused by sin, as well as a life of righteousness here and now
for those who trust in Him ( 1 Pet. 2:24 ).

Peter says that
Jesus not only died for our sins but will return to earth and usher in
the judgment of God ( 2 Pet. 3:10-12 ). He stresses the fact that the
prospect of judgment should have significant practical implications in
the life of the believer. When Jesus returns, He will destroy all sin
and will cleanse the earth with fire ( 2 Pet. 3:7 ). Then Christians will
receive the inheritance that God has been storing up for them in heaven
( 1 Pet. 1:4 ).

Peter has very practical words on how
Christians should live. First and foremost, Christians should love each
other ( 1 Pet. 4:8 ). He sums up his view by saying: “Finally, all of
you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender
heart, and a humble mind” ( 1 Pet. 3:8, NRSV).

Peter’s
epistles are also a fervent proclamation of the gospel, the central
message of the whole Bible. After all, if anyone should know the saving
grace of the Lord, it is Peter. This same Peter, who so openly and
crassly denied His Lord (even with cursing), saying, “‘I do not know
the Man’” (Matt. 26:74, NKJV), is the same one to whom Jesus later
said, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). These two epistles are examples of
Peter’s doing just that?feeding the Lord’s sheep.

And, of
course, any part of that feeding would include the great truth of
salvation by faith in Christ, a theme that his fellow worker, the
apostle Paul, so powerfully proclaimed. This is the truth of God’s
grace. Peter knew about this, not just theoretically, or just as a
doctrine, but because he had experienced the reality and power of that
grace for himself.

As Martin Luther wrote in his
commentary on Peter: “Consequently this Epistle of St. Peter is one of
the grandest books of the New Testament, and it is the true, pure
Gospel. For Peter does also the very same thing as Paul and all the
Evangelists do in that he inculcates the true doctrine of faith, how
Christ has been given to us, who takes away our sins and saves us.” Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1982), pp. 2, 3.

Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep. We are among those sheep. Let’s get fed.

Robert
K. McIver grew up in New Zealand and has worked most of his career at
Avondale College, where he teaches Bible and archaeology. He is the
author of several books, including The Four Faces of Jesus and Beyond the Da Vinci Code.

Lesson 1 March 25-31

The Person of Peter

Memory Text:
“But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and
beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’ And
immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to
him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matthew 14:30, 31,
NKJV).

Peter is the author of the two
books (1 and 2 Peter) that bear his name. He was one of the early
followers of Jesus; he remained with Jesus during the Lord’s ministry
here; and he was one of the first disciples to see the empty tomb. So
Peter had a wealth of experiences from which, inspired by the Holy
Spirit, he could draw in order to write these powerful letters. “For we
did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of
His majesty” (2 Pet. 1:16, NASB).

Peter appears often in the Gospels, revealing both his
triumphs and failures. He was the usual spokesman of the disciples in
their interactions with Jesus. After the resurrection and ascension,
Peter became a prominent early church leader. The book of Acts talks
about him, as does the book of Galatians.

Most important,
Peter knew what it was to make mistakes, to be forgiven, and to move
forward in faith and humility. Having experienced for himself the grace
of God, he remains a powerful voice for all of us who need to
experience that same grace, as well.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, April 1.

Sunday March 26

Depart From Me!

When
we first meet Peter, he is a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 4:18, Mark 1:16, and Luke 5:1-11). He had been working all night
without catching a fish. But then he and his companions obeyed Jesus’
command to return to the lake and to try again. How astonished Peter
and the others must have been when they caught so many fish that their
boats were sinking. What must have been going through their minds after
this miracle?

ReadLuke 5:1-9. What do Peter’s words to Jesus in Luke 5:8 tell us about
Peter? That is, what insights do they give us about where he was
spiritually?

Peter must have
been impressed by what he knew of Jesus. Even before this miracle, when
Jesus told the group to put down the nets, Peter-though incredulous
because they had caught nothing-nevertheless said: “‘at Your word I
will let down the net’” (NKJV). It seems that Peter must have known
something about Jesus already, and this knowledge impelled him to obey.
Indeed, evidence suggests that Peter already had been with Jesus for a
while before this event.

Perhaps one key is in Luke 5:3,
which talks about what happened before the miracle of the fish. “Then
He [Jesus] got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him
to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the
multitudes from the boat” (NKJV). Maybe the word of Jesus here was what
had first impressed Peter so deeply.

However, after the
miracle, Peter sensed something more in Jesus, something holy in
contrast to his own sinfulness. Peter’s realization of his sinfulness,
and his willingness to admit it publicly, shows just how open he was to
the Lord. No wonder He had been called! Whatever his faults, and they
were many, Peter was a spiritual man who was ready to follow the Lord,
regardless of the cost.

ReadLuke 5:11. What’s the crucial principle here? What does this text tell
us about what kind of commitment Jesus asks for? What should it tell
us, too, that these fishermen were willing to abandon everything when
their nets were full?

Monday March 27

Confessing the Christ

One
of the grand moments in the story of Jesus occurred in a dialogue with
Peter. Jesus just had been dealing with some of the scribes and
Pharisees who had been challenging Him to give them a sign, something
to prove who He was (see Matt. 16:1-4). Then, later, alone with the
disciples, Jesus talked about the two miracles He had performed, in
which He twice fed thousands with just a few loaves and fish. He did
all this in the context of warning the disciples about the “leaven of
the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matt. 16:11).

Read Matthew 16:13-17. What is happening here? What is the significance of Peter’s words to Jesus?

Peter
here spoke boldly of his faith in Jesus. And it’s clear from Matthew 16:20 that his confession of Christ as the Messiah was shared by the
others, as well. This was to be a turning point in the ministry of
Jesus, even though the disciples, including Peter, had much more to
learn.

“The disciples still expected Christ to reign as a temporal
prince. Although He had so long concealed His design, they believed
that He would not always remain in poverty and obscurity; the time was
near when He would establish His kingdom. That the hatred of the
priests and rabbis would never be overcome, that Christ would be
rejected by His own nation, condemned as a deceiver, and crucified as a
malefactor,-such a thought the disciples had never entertained.” -
Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 415.

As
soon as the disciples recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus begins
teaching that He must suffer and die (see Matt. 16:21-23), a concept
that Peter could not accept. Peter goes as far as to “rebuke” Jesus.
Jesus then turns to Peter and says, “‘Get behind Me, Satan’” (Matt. 16:23, NKJV). This is one of the harshest things that He said to
anybody during His ministry; yet, He did it for Peter’s own good.
Peter’s words reflected his own desires, his own selfish attitude about
what he wanted. Jesus had to stop him in his tracks, right then and
there (and though Jesus was really speaking to Satan, Peter got the
message). Peter needed to learn that serving the Lord would involve
suffering. That he learned this lesson is clear in his later writings
(see 1 Pet. 4:12).

How often do your
personal desires clash with what you know God wants you to do? How do
you decide what to do in those situations?

Tuesday March 28

Walking on Water

In
their time with Jesus, the disciples saw many remarkable things,
although few of them can compare with the events described in Matthew 14:13-33, Mark 6:30-52, and John 6:1-21. Jesus used five small loaves
of bread and two fish to feed more than 5,000 people. Again, what must
have been going on in their minds after seeing something like this?

ReadMatthew 14:22-33. What’s the most crucial message we can take away from
this story for ourselves to help us in our own walk with the Lord?

With
the feeding of the multitudes, these men had just witnessed the power
of Jesus in a remarkable way. He truly had control over the natural
world. That must have been what helped Peter make his rather bold, or
even presumptuous, request: “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to
You on the water” (Matt. 14:28, NKJV).

What an expression of faith!

Jesus,
then, acknowledged this faith and told Peter to come, which he did,
another expression of Peter’s faith. It would have been one thing to
walk on water when it was calm, but Peter did so in the midst of a
storm.

The usual lesson of the story is about taking our
eyes off of Jesus. But there’s more. Peter surely must have trusted in
Jesus, or he never would have made the request and then acted on it.
However, once he did act, he started to get scared, and in that fear he
began to sink.

Why? Could not Jesus have kept Peter
afloat regardless of Peter’s fear? Jesus, however, allowed Peter to
reach the point where he could do nothing but cry out in his
helplessness, “Lord, save me!” (Matt. 14:30, NKJV). Jesus then
stretched out His hand and did just what Peter had asked. The fact that
“Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him,” (Matt. 14:31, NKJV),
when Jesus could simply have kept him afloat without the physical
contact, surely helped Peter realize just how much he had to learn to
depend upon Jesus.

We can start out in great faith,
trusting in the power of our Lord, but when the situation gets
frightful, we need to remember Jesus’ words to Peter: “‘O you of little
faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matt. 14:31, NKJV).

Wednesday March 29

Denying His Lord

ReadLuke 22:31-34, 54-62. What lessons can we learn from Peter’s failures?

Peter’s
intentions were good. And, in fact, he showed more courage than did the
other disciples. He actually followed Jesus in order to discover what
would happen to Him. But in doing so, he decided to hide his true
identity. This compromise, this deviation from the path of what is good
and right, led him to deny his Lord three times, exactly as Jesus had warned him.

The story of Peter here is in a sad way very instructive on how devastating the result of compromise can be.

As we know, Christian history is soiled with the terrible results that
happen when Christians compromise crucial truths. Though life itself
often involves compromise, and we must at times be willing to give and
take, in crucial truths we must stand firm. As a people, we must learn
what are the things that we must never compromise, under any
circumstances (see, for instance, Rev. 14:12 ).

According to
Ellen G. White, Peter’s compromise and failure began in Gethsemane
when, instead of praying, he slept, and thus wasn’t spiritually ready
for what was coming. Had he been faithful in prayer, she wrote, “he
would not have denied his Lord.” - The Desire of Ages, p. 714.

Yes,
Peter failed terribly. But as great as his failure, God’s grace was
even greater. “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20, NKJV). It was Jesus’ forgiveness that made Peter one of the prime
leaders of the early Christian church. What a powerful lesson for us
all about the reality of God’s grace. What a lesson to us all that,
despite our failures, we should press on ahead in faith!

Yes,
Peter knew what it meant to be forgiven. He knew firsthand just what
the gospel was all about because he had experienced, not just the
reality of his human sinfulness but the greatness and depth of God’s
love and grace toward sinners.

How can we learn to forgive those who have greatly disappointed us as Peter disappointed Jesus here?

Thursday March 30

Peter as Church Leader

During
the ministry of Jesus, Peter often acted in the role of leader of the
12 disciples. He was their usual spokesman. When Matthew lists the
disciples, he says “first, . . . Peter” (Matt. 10:2). Peter also took a
prominent role in the early church. It was Peter who took the
initiative to appoint a disciple to replace Judas Iscariot, who
betrayed Jesus (Acts 1:15-25). On the day of Pentecost, it was Peter
who explained to the multitudes that they were seeing the promised gift
of the Spirit, poured out by God upon His people (Acts 2:14-36). It was
Peter who, when arrested for speaking about the resurrection of the
dead, spoke to the high priest and the assembled Jewish leaders (Acts 4:1-12). It was Peter who was led to Cornelius, the first Gentile to be
accepted as a follower of Jesus (Acts 10:1-48). It was Peter whom Paul
visited for 15 days when Paul first came to Jerusalem after his
conversion (Gal. 1:18). Indeed, describing the circle of Jesus’
followers in Jerusalem at that time, Paul identifies three “pillars” of
the Church: Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and John the beloved
disciple (Gal. 2:9).

ReadGalatians 1:18, 19; 2:9, 11-14 What do these texts tell us about
Peter, even while he functioned so prominently in the early church?

Even
as a church leader, even as someone clearly called of the Lord (Jesus
told Peter, “Feed my sheep” John 21:17), even as the one who received
the vision about not calling “any man common or unclean” (Acts 10:28 ),
Peter still had some important growing to do.

In the
early days of the church, almost all the Christians were Jews, many of
whom were “zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20, NKJV). In their
interpretation of the law, eating with Gentiles was problematic because
the Gentiles were considered unclean. When some Jewish Christians came
from James at Jerusalem, Peter stopped eating with the Gentiles in
Antioch.

For Paul, such behavior was an attack on the
gospel itself. He saw Peter’s actions as frank hypocrisy and he wasn’t
afraid to challenge him on it. In fact, Paul used the opportunity to
express the key teaching of the Christian faith: justification by faith
alone (see Gal. 2:14-16 ).

Though called of
God, Peter had some blind spots that needed correcting. How do we
respond when others seek to point out our own “blind spots”?

From
the fisherman’s early admission of his own sinfulness to his bold
declaration of Jesus that “‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God’” (Matt. 16:16, NKJV) to his terrible denial of his Lord and even
to his triumphs and mistakes as a leader in the church, Peter certainly
had been a key player. Thus, under the flawless inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, he could write what he did, not only from theoretical knowledge
but from experience itself. He knew not only the saving grace of Christ
but His transforming grace, as well: “Before his [Peter’s] great fall
he was always forward and dictatorial, speaking unadvisedly from the
impulse of the moment. He was always ready to correct others and to
express his mind before he had a clear comprehension of himself or of
what he had to say. But Peter was converted, and the converted Peter
was very different from the rash, impetuous Peter. While he retained
his former fervor, the grace of Christ regulated his zeal. Instead of
being impetuous, self-confident, and self-exalted, he was calm,
self-possessed, and teachable. He could then feed the lambs as well as
the sheep of Christ’s flock.” - Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, pp. 334, 335.

Who
among us can’t relate in some degree to Peter? Who hasn’t, at times,
stood boldly for their faith? And who hasn’t, at times, failed
miserably?

Discussion Questions:

What
does it tell us about the grace of God that even after such a shameful
denial of Jesus, Peter would still come to play such a prominent and
important role in not just the early church but in the Christian faith
itself? (After all, he wrote part of the New Testament.) What lessons
can we take from his restoration about how to deal with those who, in
their own way, have failed the Lord?

In class,
talk more about the dangers of compromise for the church. How can we
know on what things we need to give and take, and on what things under
no circumstances we can compromise? What are examples that we can find
in church history of compromise that led to disaster? What lessons can
we learn from these events?

Peter learned some
lessons the hard way. From seeing his mistakes, how can we learn the
lessons we need to learn but in an easier way than Peter did?

Inside Story~

The Cancelled Funeral-Part 1

One
day after school, I overheard my sister talking to a friend. “But it
happened,” a girl said. “The man was dead, and now he’s alive.” How can a dead person come back to life? I wondered. Then I said aloud, “That could never happen.”

I
knew that God had raised people from the dead in Bible times. But
miracles such as that didn’t happen anymore. Or did they? I knelt and
prayed the prayer of Thomas. “Lord, if this is true, let me see it with
my own eyes. Then I will believe” (John 20:25, NIV.

After a while I forgot about this strange story about a dead man being raised to life.

When I finished high school I applied to serve as a Global Mission Pioneer before starting college.

A
Global Mission Pioneer is a layperson chosen by the church, who is
given a small stipend, and asked to move into a community and teach the
everlasting gospel while modeling the values of Christianity. Pioneers
serve a unique and special role in starting new congregations in new
areas, among new people groups.

I was assigned to a
remote region of central Nigeria where few outsiders ever went and
where we had no Adventist believers. I settled in a village and began
making friends. Most of the villagers worshipped idols, but some
allowed me to share the gospel with them. One teenage girl named
One-Ojo seemed especially interested in learning about God. I began
studying the Bible with her.

Then one afternoon a boy ran
to my room shouting that One-Ojo was dead. “She died last night,” the
boy said. “The family wants you to come before they bury her.”

Dazed,
I slipped on my shoes and ran toward One-Ojo’s home. When I arrived, I
found her body lying on a straw mat, bound hand and foot and ready for
burial. I stared at her as I thought about our Bible study just the
evening before. How can she be dead? I wondered. I touched her arm; it was stiff and cold.

I
asked for permission to pray before the family buried her. About 20
people in the room watched as I knelt beside her burial mat and prayed.
I asked God to give this girl her life back to teach these people that
God is all-powerful.

I had been praying for about an hour
when I noticed beads of sweat on One-Ojo’s body. I laid my hand on her
arm and felt warmth. Encouraged, I continued praying. Then One-Ojo
sneezed.

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